just another ex-jazz-musician/proto-rapper/Jersey-Irish-poet-actor/print-junkie/film-raptor/beat-hipster-"white Negro"-rhapsodizer/ex-hippie-punk-'60s-radical-organizer's take on all things cultural, political, spiritual & aggrandizing

Sunday, January 2, 2011

JUST A THOUGHT

Back in Jersey, where the mercury climbed well above normal for winter, and it rained, like a Spring rain, this weekend.

Fortunately, because we already had three feet of snow on the ground at my place, it's now only down to one foot or so. So it still looked like winter on our arrival back, but didn't feel like it.

I wonder why the rightwingers who go on and on about how the winter weather we had last week with the big snowstorm here somehow proves that there is no such thing as global warming with their sarcasm and smugness, somehow thinking that winter weather in winter disproves the reality of temperatures descending every year so far in this century (the yearly average of course, though they seem incapable of that kind of abstract thinking, like, duh, it's cold in winter global warming must not exist) but the minute—or day or days or weeks or more—the thermometer rises to above the average for the season, sometimes way way above, they clam up, no word, change the subject, etc.

27 comments:

I also wonder why lefties think the world will ignore the fraud that went into the research to back up governments expanding their reach into everday life in the name of saving the planet. We are not stupid and the roll back of Obama/Pelosi/Reid big government begins this week. If the Republicans don't do it, they will face Tea Party challenges in 2012.

As far as we can tell, the earth has gone through cycles of hot and cold for eons. At the same time, humanity is at an unprecedented time of overpopulation, rampant industrialization, deforestation and the like. There is absolutely no question that this has a bearing on our environment. To deny this, this is stupid and heinous, tantamount to denying the Holocaust. Ungoverned, unregulated business, industry has but one motive: profit. Someone has to look out for the overall good of the people, as, left unregulated and ungoverned, history has shown us that it won't do it on its own.

Robert,More and more esteemed scientists seem to be acting stupidly and heinously. This is from the Christian Science Monitor which is not normally noted for being stupid or heinous.

"This month, a senior American physicist challenged the reigning scientific “consensus” about global warming. His action may prove to be the unraveling one of the great scientific mistakes in history and the beginning of a greatly needed reformation of the scientific community.

Revulsion over fraudJust as Martin Luther paid the price for his dissent, Dr. Harold Lewis is experiencing a sharp backlash in the wake of his Oct. 6 resignation letter from the prestigious American Physical Society (APS). After 67 years as a member, Dr. Lewis – emeritus professor of physics and former department chairman at the University of California, Santa Barbara – parted ways because of his “revulsion” over the climate change “fraud” perpetrated by what he felt was science distorted by money.

Other esteemed scientists have in recent years put forward compelling critiques of the technical and scientific case for anthropogenic climate change. Dr. Lewis’s resignation letter is not such a critique. Rather, it is a condemnation of the way ideology, politics, and money have suppressed dissenting viewpoint and distorted the very nature of scientific inquiry. Like the so-called Climategate controversy, in which hacked emails from a group of climate scientists revealed political and personal factors influencing scientific work, Lewis’ letter lays bare the less-than-noble motivations that seem to be driving discussion of climate-change research today.

The APS position: 'incontrovertible'To understand Lewis’s letter, you first have to understand the APS position on climate change. The APS, like several other major scientific organizations, supports the theory of man-caused global warming. Its official statement from 2007 read, in part: “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.... The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.”

“[T]he money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.... I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that ...."

So, you believe that industry, pollution, deforestation and all the thing humanity does and does not do, have no bearing on our environment, on the shrinking of the polar ice caps, the disappearance of species, cancer and other diseases? And you believe that more mindful living would make no difference?

Of course not. A clean enviroment is a worthy movement and goal. Man caused global warming is at worst a hoax and at best is unproven. It would be a travesty to spend trillions which the world does not have to fix a problem which probably does not exist. Even if the US spends, China and India are exempted. That does not mean that the enviroment should not be cleaned and policed for the good of all.

I appreciate your comments Robert, but you're wasting your breath. There is only one reality for most rightwingers, and certainly the one that uses this blog as a forum for his distortions and lies. Anyone who read that entire article and the other articles relating to it available on line and in print from various sources, knows that the charges against the English scientists were found to be baseless and their findings on global warming scientifically valid, as anyone who is old enough to read and comprehend the world knows that the scientists who have been most against the idea the idea of a manmade contribution to global warming, are those that have been subsidized by those with a profit interest in discrediting the idea of global warming caused at least in part by fossil fuels etc. i.e. the oil companies, whose profits this past year were the largest in history. God forbid we should put any restrictions on them! Your logic, I'm afraid is too logical for rightwingers like the one you're addressing here. Many of my good friends are Republicans but even they know how to read and compare arguments and evidence and don't surrender their intellect to rightwing propaganda mostly funded by rightwing profiteers like the Koch brothers who, oh my what a coincidence, make most of their unconscionable billions in oil and other industries that contribute the most to the drastic climate changes that are already occurring and only a fool or a liar, or both, can ignore and deny.

"Trillions for a maybe, but unlikely problem" gee, that sounds like Afghanistan and Iraq. a) where do you get "trillions" anyway? And what's with "boy president" Who was it that said: lose the nastiness?

Jim's attitude and posturing confirm his complete lack of awareness,grace and respect. In one regard, his comments are so ridiculous as not not even merit a response, but at the same time the fact that there are sadly many out there like him demands ongoing, decisive tea-secticide.

I was willing to be convinced his comment was due to a lack of awareness or some huge Freudian slip (which I've done in the past and will undoubtedly do in the future) but his "What do you mean? What did I say?" routine is straight out of the schoolyard.

From here on out, I'll let the facts speak for themselves and won't be commenting any further.

K at least Lally had the gonads to openly attack and call me a liar, without any back up I might add. You through innuendo, attack. In the end, despite your ponderously tedious columns,you have demonstrated an inability to defend your liberal philosophy(deletion of comments), which has repeatedly failed since the French Revolution.

Okay, deletion time again. I thought it might be interesting to watch him entangle himself in his own evasions and failures to address any issue without falling back on the rightwing propaganda strategy of the day. The so-called climate-gate case has been shown to have no bearing whatsoever on the science involved and the only "trillions" spent as a result of climate science concluding global warming is real and at least partially human-caused are programs by governments to regulate pollution or projected profits lost by corporations paying scientists to reach conclusions favorable to them, et-endlessly-cetera. It is always exactly what you can find on the rightwing blogs and from the rightwing mouthpieces, never new evidence, just new position papers that demonstrate how to phrase and frame arguments that will defend the oil companies and other rapacious corporations' deathdealing profit margins etc. Endlessly boring actually, except that it works at convincing so many that whatever these corporations want which will increase their profits and the distance from their money and power to the rest of us is somehow in the interest of the ret of us. The resident troll on this blog is just an extreme example of that, god bless him, and when his arguments fail due to lack of any evidence other than citations from rightwing position papers and their interpreters and defenders, he resorts to bullying sounds, like he has any idea who the real people are who he is talking to and what they may be capable of and were in many instances when he was just a bleating poser wanting so badly to be seen as having the intellectual capacity to actually win a debate on merit rather than bluster, misdirection and parroting rightwing talking points crafted by his puppetmasters who are skilled enough at their task that he can be convinced these are his own ideas.

Michael, you and your pal K think that name calling is a legitimate and equal substitute for reasoned debate backed up with historical precedent. You are both not only wrong, but if the last election is an indication, are fast becomeing irrelevant.

I'm cutting Jimbo off for awhile after this last response. He has demonstrated time and again that he has absolutely no interest in "reasoned debate" (and what the hell does he mean by "backed up with historical precedent"—oh, that's right, it's another new rightwing catchphrase (one of the reasons I allow him to ramble from time to time is to catch up on the latest rightwing talking points and framing arguments etc.)). One example is the whole global warming thing that sparked this latest thread. In the '90s (and actually earlier as well) many scientists concluded global warming was real and predicted what would happen if something wasn't done about it, and in the last ten years all of those predictions have come true. So naturally rightwing defenders of oil corporations and other bigtime polluters that contribute so much to the manmade part of global warming cannot respond to that reality in a "reasoned debate" because there is no debating with facts. But as with evolution or Obama's birthplace or calling Obama a "socialist" etc. etc. what the rightwing means by "debate" is we get to refute factual evidence with talking points and framing and citing each others position papers rather than facts. Environmental scientists predicted the melting of the global ice caps and major glaciers etc.—the only thing they got wrong was that it is happening faster than they predicted. They predicted extreme weather patterns causing worse storms, worse flooding, more tornadoes, etc. all of which has come true and is only getting worse. I was a weatherman (actually a "weather observer" which means I took measurements and kept the records etc.) for over four years in the U.S. Air Force so I know a little about this, and the facts are that more weather records have been broken in the last ten years than in the previous century and more. Most corporations that aren't the worst offenders are funding tons of research on how to combat the effects of global warming, and they don't spend that kind of money unless they believe it's worth their while. As with evolution vs. creationism, there is no "reasoned debate" but instead a position with no basis in fact vs. a position based on facts. No matter how many elections are won by corporate shills twisting reality into something they can use to defend baseless positions, it doesn't make those positions true or correct or backed up by factual evidence, though it might make them "backed up by historical precedent" like as I recall slavery once was, as were honor killings, genocide, etc. The poor souls who fall for this mishmash of emotional validation and various size lies and end up voting for those who would deprive them of even more well being (the USA now has the biggest gap between rich and poor of any Western nation) are "more to be pitied than censured" as the "historical precedent" of that old song my father used to sing had it. But they are also more to be deleted than listened to endlessly for now.

Jim, Dude, you are the king of name calling! I can't believe you try pegging this on K and Micheal and don't own up to the FACT that name calling is the hallmark of your rhetoric (boy president, left coast, victory mosque, Obamacare, Obamanomics, lefties, etc etc tec.

The one thing that is obviously true, is that the debate continues and is far from settled. Who is a thinking person to believe, Big Al or their own senses as cold records fall around the world.

"British meteorologist Piers Corbyn appeared on Fox and Friends to not only celebrate his accurate prediction of a bone-chillingly cold winter, but to also share his disgust with what he believes to be the “failed science” behind global warming. Despite it often being mentioned that the consensus in the scientific community is that global warming is undisputedly occurring, Corbyn proudly goes against the grain and advocates for his hypothesis of the coming global cooling.

Predicting in November that winter in Europe would be “exceptionally cold and snowy, like Hell frozen over at times,” Corbyn suggested we should sooner prepare for another Ice Age than worry about global warming. Corbyn believed global warming “is complete nonsense, it’s fiction, it comes from a cult ideology. There’s no science in there, no facts to back [it] up.” Furthermore, he disputed the underlying assumption of most scientists, arguing that higher carbon dioxide levels does not actually have the effect of increasing temperature, and instead global warming supporters “fiddle the facts to justify political attacks.”

Jim, the debate does continue and you'd have been best to leave it at that, rather than then go on to parade one curmudgeon's opinion as if it was abolute fact. It's not. The real point behind the "global warming" notion is more widespread than just temperature, it's about pollution, waste, deforestation and in general choices, practices and thinking that do not consider their consequnces. The glaciers and polar ice caps are shrinking. Species are dying. Cancer continues and does infertility and a host of ailments related to man made things. The point being to heed these warnings and begin living in a more mindful, humane way. I remember seeing a few times shortly after 911 people driving cars emblazoned with American flags tossing lit cigarettes out of their car windows. These are not patriots, carrying or displaying a flag does not make one a patriot. Watching out for this land and being considerate of others is a start to patriotism.

Also, the weather doesn't begin here on earth. The earth don't forget is a planet in a solar system in vast, infinite space. The wind and weather patterns come from beyond Earth's atmosphere and in fact from beyond our lifetimes.

If you want to comment on the election you might want to look at our home state. I personally can not do much about voters in other states. I loved the way we voted in Colorado or did you forget. Unless I forgot I thought we still have the senate and I thought our President Obama can still veto or did I miss something since I do not and will never watch Fox news. Lally, thanks for your comments.